It is with a beating heart that Isabelle * called her husband, the father of her three children, this evening in June 2019.
She was at home.
Martin* was at work.
“Your daughter just described things to me. »
She described these things.
At the end of the line, he became panting.
” No that’s not true.
– You cry ?
– No.
“Why do you look out of breath?”
— I move boxes.
“I’ll tell you what your daughter just said to me. and you move boxes? »
At this stage of the chronicle, the keen reader will have understood what Isabelle had just learned from her children.
She had the baby, who was less than a year old, in her arms. Her 6 year old daughter was in the shower. Her 4 year old son was in the bath. The pre-sleep ritual. Isabelle oversaw the children’s cleaning routines.
” Don’t forget to also wash your private parts, children… »
And it was there, at that precise moment, that the ground began to open under Isabelle’s feet, as her daughter replied:
“Like we do to daddy?
– What do you mean ?
“Okay, dad, let’s do this to him…”
And the little one mimed a gesture of masturbation.
Isabelle told me in an interview: “I was in shock. »
In the bathroom, she delicately asked the question:
“Are you talking about dad?
“Yes, yes,” replied the little one, still in the shower.
And the little one, in the bath, confirmed, too.
That’s when she called Martin at work, that’s when Isabelle said to him: ” Your daughter just described things to me “, and that she described these things and that Martin mumbled the answers of a guy who did not know what to answer, in a tone that she had never known him, the tone of a guy who, in hindsight , was that of a guy who had just been punched.
Isabelle looks at me, in the café, very small, very slender, with a marble face, the pile of court documents in front of her: “I was 99% sure that my daughter was telling the truth. There were too many details that a child of that age cannot know about sexuality. »
The little one described a flaccid penis that grew and hardened under stimulation. She described to her mother the ejaculation, the texture and the color of the liquid which comes out of it.
And other very direct details that I won’t detail here.
“My first instinct, Isabelle tells me, was to call my sister, just to tell her We are coming… »
But the little one interrupted her, she thought her mother was calling the police.
“I don’t want you to call the police, mum: dad is going to jail. »
And the ground opened further under the feet of the mother of the family.
Isabelle called her sister: “Don’t ask questions, but can you welcome us this evening, for a few days, me and the children… Yes? We are coming. »
Quickly, calmly, trying not to frighten the children, Isabelle picked up essential items – nappies, comforters, clothes – to go to her sister’s.
A text message appeared in Isabelle’s phone.
It was Martin: “I’m coming. »
Isabelle did not want to meet her husband at home with the children. She hurried on.
Later, when her son names the emotion that came over him that night when she decided to leave the house rather than put the children to bed, he would say, “Fear. “Children feel everything.
When Isabelle arrived at her sister’s, she entrusted the children to her brother-in-law and then she quickly dragged her sister outside. She closed the door on the porch, saying, “Today my life changes. »
That evening, Isabelle returned home to confront Martin. Her brother-in-law followed her by car, just in case.
Isabelle entered the house. Martin was at the top of the stairs, a few feet away from her.
“What do you have to say?” »
Martin didn’t answer right away.
So, Isabelle repeated her daughter’s confidences, in detail.
There, Martin replied:
“What she told you about yesterday is true. »
Isabelle thought: Yesterday, last night, when I went to the grocery store.
Martin’s voice continued:
“Yesterday she touched my penis. »
Isabelle replied, before leaving: “It’s over, I’m asking for a divorce. »
The next day was a Saturday. Isabelle made a report to the DPJ. The police were automatically involved in the case. The following Monday, investigators questioned the little one.
“It was there, Isabelle told me, that we understood the scope of what had happened. »
What had happened was a classic dynamic of parental abuse: when Isabelle was not around – when she went to the gym, to the grocery store, when she worked, when she went to see friends – Martin assaulted the two older, their children.
“It lasted a year, a year and a half,” Isabelle tells me again.
The ground had opened up under her feet and a thousand emotions tormented her, while Isabelle was in free fall. Guilt (she hadn’t seen anything, suspected anything), fear (what will happen to the children, what will be the consequences?), anger (how could he have done that?)…
Martin was arrested soon after, accused of sexually assaulting his children.
The boy and the girl described to the investigators to have undergone at the hands of their own father a whole range of sexual gestures.
Martin left the house, Isabelle came back with the children, with the intention of selling it to the most sacred. From June 2019 to January 2020, it was kind of foggy. Martin had a ban on contact with children, but Isabelle knew nothing of what was going on.
Was he going to plead guilty?
Was he going to plead not guilty, force a trial, which would force the children to testify?
Would he show up at the door of the house to talk to her, to try to see the children?
In January, Martin pleaded guilty. In July, he received his sentence: three years. He then went to prison.
By his admission of guilt, Martin therefore admitted the facts. He admitted to molesting his own son and daughter for months.
But…
But Martin was still the children’s father. Legally, Martin still had parental rights, he still had a voice in decisions concerning his children.
On the other side of the table, I am flabbergasted.
“Medical decision: he had his say,” says Isabelle. A trip out of the country? Same thing. And if I died, as he was their father, there was still a chance that he could ask to have them back…
“When did you realize he still had the right to get involved in the children’s lives?”
— Right from the start. He asked for news of the children and I was required to give it to him, according to the DPJ. »
For Isabelle, it was insane: Martin was accused of assaulting his children… But he could still claim a role in their lives.
It became even more senseless in his eyes when Martin pleaded guilty: he admitted the facts of sexual assault, but he could still – in the eyes of the DPJ, of justice – legally and possibly claim his parental authority… over his own victims.
And everywhere she turned she was told: It’s terrible, ma’am, but that’s the way it is. »
It was then that Isabelle discovered the principle of forfeiture of parental authority, when a parent loses all rights over their children. It is necessary to make the request before the Court… And to prove that this forfeiture is in the interest of the child.
Isabelle said to herself: He assaulted the children, he admitted the facts, it will only be a simple formality to obtain his parental forfeiture…
Was it so simple?
This will be the subject of tomorrow’s column.
* The first names have been changed to preserve the identity of the children.